France and the Alps · Volume 11, Butter, Cider and the Buckwheat Line
Tripes à la mode de Caen
Caen, Normandy
Illustration
- Time
- 15 hours
- Researched
- Researched from 72 sources in the brief
A dish the popular record attributes to a 14th century monk of Caen's Abbaye aux Hommes, Sidoine Benoît, a story repeated widely but not traced to any primary source in this chapter's research and treated here as folk-etymology rather than fact.
As tradition built it
4½ to 15 hours of low, steady heat, traditional; about 2½ hours by pressure cooker.
Ingredients
- 800 g all four parts of the beef stomach: panse, feuillet, bonnet and caillette
- 1 beef foot, for body and gelatine
- 50 cl cider
- 6.5 cl Calvados
- to cover flour-and-water paste, to lute the lid
Method
- Place the four parts of the beef stomach and the beef foot in a stoneware tripière with cider and Calvados as the standard flavouring.
- Seal the lid shut with a flour-and-water paste luting so that no liquid or aroma escapes.
- Cook at a low, steady heat for anywhere from four and a half to as much as fifteen hours, traditional accounts vary, or about two and a half hours in a modern pressure cooker.
What a modern chef changes
Sous vide as the tripière rebuilt, with a hot finish and a butter-mounted sauce
Rung 6
Method
- Seal the tripe, the beef foot, cider, Calvados and aromatics in a bag and hold at a low, precise temperature for the full traditional duration, achieving the same slow collagen-to-gelatine conversion without the risk of scorching or drying that an unwatched stovetop pot carries over many hours.
- Finish the dish in a very hot pan or under a Big Green Egg's direct heat for a minute to build a little caramelised surface the sealed method alone cannot give.
- Mount the reduced cooking liquor with a little cold, hand-worked butter through a chinois for a glossier, cleaner sauce than the rustic original.